By the numbers:

24,000 – The number of times Arnold estimates she's been stung by bees

10 cents – The price it costs Arnold to purchase one bee

60 – The number of bees she orders a week

$624 – Arnold's yearly bee venom therapy costs, including shipping

$12,000 – The amount Arnold was spending on prescription drugs to control her MS

Barbara Arnold estimates she has been stung by bees at least 24,000 times.

She did so willingly.

Arnold lives with multiple sclerosis, or MS as it is commonly called, a debilitating and incurable disease that affects a person's central nervous system.

The bee stings, she believes, slow the progress of her disease.

The 73-year-old Irvine resident is among a small number of patients living with MS or other ailments who practice bee venom therapy, a controversial alternative treatment that is dismissed by mainstream doctors.

“I knew where the MS could lead and I thought bee venom therapy might be the best way for me to hedge against what could happen in the future and how fast it could happen,” said Arnold, vice president of education at The Management Trust in Tustin.

So, twice a week for the past 13 years, she's allowed herself to be stung – on her back, her legs, her arms, even her head.

These days, she typically takes her treatment at her office. On a recent morning, she sat at her desk and pulled up her shirt, exposing her back.

It was hard to miss the sound of the bees.

Along the edge of the desk were a row of tweezers lined up like scalpels on a tray at a doctor's office. Each held a honeybee ready to deliver its venom.

Arnold's co-worker, Christie Clingenpeel, took the tweezers and stung Arnold – 26 times – along her mid- to lower back; it's a process the 30-year-old has been doing to her boss every week, twice a week, for the past nine years.

“I've been stung so many times I've become desensitized to it,” said Arnold, whose back has bold red track marks along the spinal column from years of treatment.

Arnold discovered the unusual treatment after attending an apitherapy convention in the mid-1990s, about five years after being diagnosed. Apitherapy is the use of bee venom for medicinal purposes.

Lady Spirit Moon, a North Carolina-based beekeeper and ambassador for the Center for Honey Bee Research, said bee venom contains melittin, an anti-inflammatory. Moon said bee therapy has been around for thousands of years and claims it helps patients living with arthritis, tendinitis and MS.

Chris Kleronomos, a nurse practitioner and board member at the American Apitherapy Society, said there is evidence that bee venom therapy works.

“It is about 100 times as potent as cortisol,” Kleronomos said.

MEDICAL COMMUNITY HAS ITS DOUBTS

Neurologists are quick to dismiss those claims.

The use of bee venom to treat MS is not accepted in the medical community, said Dr. Daniel Bandari, director at the Multiple Sclerosis Center of California & Research Group in Newport Beach.

“We don't believe immunologically that it works,” Bandari said. “We don't advocate this form of therapy. If you know anything about people living with chronic disease, they look for any possible means to manage it, conventional therapy or not.”

Dr. Michael Demetriou, director at the National Multiple Sclerosis Society Designated Comprehensive Care Clinic at UC Irvine, said patients should be careful when using anecdotal remedies to treat MS.

“There's a large placebo effect,” Demetriou said.

Arnold knows the criticism well. She has lived with MS for 18 years.

MS occurs when a person's immune system attacks the brain, Demetriou said.

“Specifically, the autoimmune system attacks the myelin sheet in the body,” Demetriou said. “It's like an electrical wire; it needs insulation to conduct. So the myelin is the insulation protecting the axons (nerve fiber), the wires. The autoimmune system will strip the myelin away from the wires, and that's how a person gets symptoms.”

Arnold is among more than 2.5 million people worldwide afflicted with the disease, about 400,000 of whom live in the United States.

There are no known causes, just theories ranging from genetic background to environmental triggers, Demetriou said.

‘WHY NOT?' TO ALTERNATIVE THERAPY

Arnold's health was failing when she was diagnosed with MS in the mid-1990s, and the cocktail of drugs she was prescribed cost her $12,000 a year. That's when she decided to try bee venom therapy.

“I said, ‘Why not?' The prescribed shots I was taking weren't working. I was getting worse and worse.”

Arnold estimates she's been stung by bees more than 24,000 times since starting the treatment 13 years ago. She said she feels rejuvenated after receiving the bee venom therapy.

“Fatigue is a big setback with MS,” she said. “I've noticed my energy level improve. I can work a whole day. I'm not as tired as I was before. I'm living my life.”

Arnold said every week she receives a shipment of 60 honeybees from a beekeeper in Northern California.

The bees costs 10 cents each. She spends roughly $624 a year on the treatment.

The procedure is done at her office with co-workers helping.

Arnold's daughter, Heide Bush, an IT consultant at The Management Trust, catches the bees with tweezers through a mesh-covered jar.

Clingenpeel rubs an ice pack for a few seconds to numb a section of Arnold's back before pressing a bee's stinger into that area. The stinger is separated from the bee, and for several minutes continues to pump venom into Arnold.

The bee venom releases natural endorphins and stimulates the body, said Arnold, who does not flinch as each stinger is inserted.

Clingenpeel repeats the process, one by one, until all the bees are gone. The bees die within a matter of minutes.

Arnold has had as many as 60 to 70 bee stings in one treatment.

After 15 to 20 minutes, Clingenpeel or Bush will remove the stingers.

Arnold is unfazed.

“There are times my daughter forgets to remove a bee's stingers, so I'd come home with stingers on my back,” Arnold said. “I've even slept with stingers still on me.”

Despite doctors advising her against the procedure, Arnold said she will continue the treatments.

She knows this is not a cure for MS. There are none. But she believes that it has slowed the disease's progression.

“When she was on the other drugs, she was getting worse very quickly,” Bush said. “When we started bee venom therapy, it slowed down tremendously. She still has MS, and it's still progressing, but not as rapidly.”

Arnold said the treatment may not be for everybody.

“If it works, it works,” Arnold said. “All I can tell you is my story.”

Related Links

Christie Clingenpeel applies 30 bee stings on Barbara Arnold's back. For the past 12 years Barbara Arnold uses bee venom to treat her multiple sclerosis. Her treatment consists of 30 bee stings twice a week, and about 2,880 bee stings for the year. Arnold says she doesn't feel the bee stings on her back. ED CRISOSTOMO, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Christie Clingenpeel applies 30 bee stings on Barbara Arnold's back. For the past 12 years Barbara Arnold uses bee venom to treat her multiple sclerosis. Her treatment consists of 30 bee stings twice a week, and about 2,880 bee stings for the year. Arnold says she doesn't feel the bee stings on her back. ED CRISOSTOMO, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
For the past 12 years Barbara Arnold uses bee venom to treat her multiple sclerosis. Arnold says she doesn't feel the bee stings on her back. ED CRISOSTOMO, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Heide Bush lines up 30 honey bees to be used for her mother Barbara Arnold's treatment. For the past 13 years, Arnold has used bee venom to treat her multiple sclerosis. ED CRISOSTOMO, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Christie Clingenpeel applies 30 bee stings on Barbara Arnold's back. For the past 12 years Barbara Arnold uses bee venom to treat her multiple sclerosis. Her treatment consists of 30 bee stings twice a week, and about 2,880 bee stings for the year. Arnold says she doesn't feel the bee stings on her back. ED CRISOSTOMO, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Heide Bush lines up 30 honey bees to be used for her mother Barbara Arnold's treatment. For the past 12 years Barbara Arnold uses bee venom to treat her multiple sclerosis. Her treatment consist of 30 bee stings twice a week, and about 2,880 bee stings for the year. Arnold says she doesn't feel the bee stings on her back. ED CRISOSTOMO, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Heide Bush lines up 30 honey bees to be used for her mother Barbara Arnold's treatment. For the past 12 years Barbara Arnold uses bee venom to treat her multiple sclerosis. Her treatment consist of 30 bee stings twice a week, and about 2,880 bee stings for the year. Arnold says she doesn't feel the bee stings on her back. ED CRISOSTOMO, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Heide Bush removes the stingers off her mother Barbara Arnold's back after her teatment. For the past 12 years Barbara Arnold uses bee venom to treat her multiple sclerosis. Her treatment consist of 30 bee stings twice a week, and about 2,880 bee stings for the year. Arnold says she doesn't feel the bee stings on her back. ED CRISOSTOMO, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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